KickStarter Shroud of the Avatar - Lord British's Not-Ultima Online 2

[Makabb]

"They are doing fine" he said after they fired half of their staff. "Patches add welcome additions", he added staring at the first new monster in the last 6 months. If only people could be more oblivious to the fact the game is still a broken less and that no one is bothering to fund Episode 2.

"This game is a great success", he repeated to himself one last time before rushing to farm some items : he had in-game taxes to pay.

"Man, I can't wait for more news on Episode 2. Now that they have finished relocating to a cheaper office, they can probably show the entire world how healthy their situation are."

It's darkest before the dawn

 

[Father Foreskin]

All 200 people playing this are convinced the game is a success. Even after 2 publishers, seedinvest campaign and some layoffs the future looks bright. Buy a castle, make a profit!

 

[Taxnomore]

That was too fucking tempting.

 

[Taxnomore]

I give up.

 

[Grauken]

Is he advocating stealing art? His tweet sounds confused

 

[thesheeep]

Even weirder, his answer has absolutely nothing to do with open source or the question asked by Romero...
Open source = source code = programming != open art

If he said we use Gimp, Krita, Inkscape, Audacity, Blender, etc. that would have made some sense.

 

[Grauken]

Also the way he words it "...buy art from fledgling artists, improve it..." manages to sounds predatory and insulting at the same time, double bingo

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I'm downloading hte trial client right now. It's 39.99 on steam and I was weary of spending that much on something might not work on my system. And that's a lot to spend if it works but I don't like it. So I was happy when I saw the trial offer on the official sota website.

I built a new budget system. Here're the important parts:
i3-8100 coffeelake (comparable to the older i5-6500--skylake microarchitecture)
16gb ram
B360 chipset motherboard

Wondering if it'll run at all given SOTA is newer game. Intel IGPU is terribly slow. If it does, it'll run poorly.

I've always been a fan of UO. My first MMO was EQ in March 1999, but I played UO in Sep 1999. I played both over the years. My investigations into sota over the past year or two lead me to believe I might like it. I remember learning about it and going to a forum and all they did was complain. I remember thinking "Why're you complaining so much?" It made me think they just don't liike the game. Sometimes people don't like a game and they don't know it. Nevertheless, I'm going to find out if this really is something I'd like, or it was just a mistaken impression.

There're so many MMO's it's crazy. It's weird I settled on this at this moment.

If I don't like it, I can always fall bakc on Wurm Online or Mortal Online or the half dozen other ones.

EDIT: The install and patch are about 9gb. It just got done patching and updating. Going to...

 

[Taxnomore]

I will pray for your soul.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

A quick google search tells you that UO's costs were around 5-8 million dollars.

Compare that to Star Citizen fund of over 100 million dollars or WoW cost.

5-8 million dollars IS a fraction of the cost.



And SOTA has raised 12 million, that is all money directly to Garriott

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35155

Hmm. UO released at least a full year before EQ. The cost to develop EQ was about 3 million, so I strongly question the 5-8 million dollar figure for UO. Anarchy Online was in the same ballpark as EQ. Dark Ages of Camelot was made by 25 developers in less than 2 years for 2.5 million. When WoW spent 30-50 million, it was a big thing. It wasn't the first game company to spend a lot, but other MMO companies followed the example. Even after you account for inflation, the costs to develop MMO's has skyrocketed. ESO had something like a 200 million development budget. However, not all MMO's follow this trend. Black Desert ONline is an example of a company spent very little. In fact, I've read they only spent $1 million USD. It's a Korean MMORPG, maybe that's why. Everything is inhouse. This figure may not include the full costs, but it can be expected it's far less than the trend. And this is even as Black Desert Online has made many millions in profits worldwide. My point being a "good" MMORPG doesn't necessarily have to spend hundreds of millions to be profitable.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I will pray for your soul.

All I got to do now is click Play.

 

[Taxnomore]

I will pray for your soul.

All I got to do now is click Play.

Be careful. You will see on the first hours it is a game that is bad, but not as terrible as I made it to be. But you will keep on playing.

And then you will see.

But you will keep playing more.

And then you will see more.

And then it will be too late. You will, sometimes, be able to look away. But always, at some point, you will look back and see something new, something you haven't noticed, and get deeper, deeper, into the abyss.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I will pray for your soul.

All I got to do now is click Play.

Be careful. You will see on the first hours it is a game that is bad, but not as terrible as I made it to be. But you will keep on playing.

And then you will see.

But you will keep playing more.

And then you will see more.

And then it will be too late. You will, sometimes, be able to look away. But always, at some point, you will look back and see something new, something you haven't noticed, and get deeper, deeper, into the abyss.

Hey I know the difference between something I really enjoy and something which just has a grip on my memories. Wurm Online is something I enjoyed. Entropia Universe is just nostalgia. The difference between the two is I enjoy one and no hte other.

Welp, now I take the plunge. Will it even run?

 

[grimace]

Welp, now I take the plunge. Will it even run?

How does it run. You are using the native launcher?

Please share your impressions with us.

 

[Father Foreskin]

Hes not coming back. SOTA can be overwhelming if you are used to half-decent games.

 

[thesheeep]

In memory of our lost comrade...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Oh Jesus.
Hope it’s not as bad as my plunge was into Aion.

 

[Taxnomore]

Everything is fine.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...b7w6vR8n9quo73SDtETvvW84NWuRyUwG2k7V77wlz5Elk

 

[Taxnomore]

Yes.

Everything peachy.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

There's a name I haven't heard since my dragonlance novel years in junior high.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

I just checked his website a few times as far back as 2013 via the wayback machine and I couldn't find any information about Shroud of the Avatar on it at any point. But it doesn't seem like he has had any involvement with Portalarium since the novel was originally published in 2015.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

I don't really buy that religion argument for why he left the project. What seems more likely is that he was brought on board in 2013 during the early development stages, helped write the story for the game as well as the novel and then they just simply haven't wanted or needed his help since. The planned trilogy of novels is never going to happen and they will probably just do all the remaining story stuff in-house.

 

[grimace]

The way I understand it:

Tracy Hickman wrote the prose for the story Richard Garriot outlined. Hickman was hired and paid for what might be considered "ghost writing" if he had not lent his name (and credibility) to the cover of the novel (of which there are two versions).

- - -

On the issue of using the word "officer" in a title ...

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lord-british-creative-director.144393/

As we have adjusted our direction and team to focus on Episode 2 we have decided to eliminate any titles and positions with the word Officer, including my own which was CEO. This leaves me to focus on my true role as Creative Director while Chris Spears and Starr Long can focus on the running of the team.

- Lord British

 

[Taxnomore]

My tax senses are tingling.

 

[grimace]

My tax senses are tingling.

Release 4 (March 27 - 30, 2014)

Swimming: Jumping was just the first step to giving players a much greater feeling of movement freedom. Like jumping, swimming will eventually be governed by game systems like encumbrance and focus.

http://sotawiki.net/sota/Release_4

As early as March 27th, players have immersively role played "jumping the shark" and "swimming to off shore accounts".